EU warns Bosnia over slow police reforms

SARAJEVO, June 15 (Reuters) The European Union today warned Bosnia it was not moving fast enough on reforms, particularly to create a single police force, and that failure to make progress could endanger talks on closer ties.

Bosnia, torn apart by war in 1992-95 and then stitched back together into a state containing a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb Republic, was the last Balkan country to start talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU.

The SAA talks, which Bosnia hopes to finish by early 2007, are a first step on what is seen as a long road to EU accession.

But Reinhard Priebe, head of the Western Balkans office in the EU Enlargement Commission, said Brussels expected much more to be done in order to clear that first obstacle.

''Let me be frank: we would have liked to see more progress over the last months,'' he told a news conference at the end of a two-day meeting of a reforms monitoring team, whose findings are crucial for the conclusion of the SAA talks.

''On the issue of the police reform there is a particular hesitation on moving ahead in Republika Srpska (Serb Republic).'' The two halves of the country agreed last October to create a single, multi-ethnic police force in 3-5 years, a commitment that paved the way for the start of the SAA talks.

But the Serb Republic's leaders have since raised objections to policing areas that would cut across the line dividing the two regions, and have frozen participation in a police reform body, insisting on the preservation of their interior ministry.

''The European Commission made it very clear that if the compromise of the last year on the police reform and the work of the police directorate is obstructed we will run into serious difficulties regarding the conclusion of the SAA,'' Priebe said.

Bosnia will hold its fourth postwar general elections on October 1, but Priebe said this was not an excuse for the governments and parliaments to slow down their work.

Many important pieces of legislation are waiting to be adopted in areas such as banking supervision, insurance, leasing and pharmaceuticals.

Reforms of public broadcasting and administration have also been lagging behind, he said.

REUTERS SY BD2316